By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
It was inevitable. The national political theater that is presidential debate requires that blood be drawn, that punches be exchanged; in short, we want our tribal leaders to grapple with each other until one stands above the other, hopefully with a foot on the loser’s neck. We never move far from Establishment politics in this nation because in order to do that, we would have to rethink who we are, change the very life script that we depend on for identity.
Think about it. We would have to give up our inflated sense of superiority and our long history of conquest, begin to actually value life here and abroad, and refresh our dedication to a government “of, for and by the people” rather than one skewed to enhance our private fortunes and obsession with materiality.
Surely it’s apparent that there’s a reason why we didn’t select pro-peace Dennis Kucinich to run the nation, despite a number of opportunities: when it comes to national leadership we have confused arrogance with confidence and aggression with leadership.
Like it or not, Americans are carnivores, competitors, and no matter what our party persuasion, we want our president to reveal a gladiator’s heart and stomp the other guy into the mud.
Prior to this week’s debate, those able to read between the lines were given a couple of ‘tells’ about how it would go. Romney, it was said, was memorizing zingers while the Obama camp was rejecting them in favor of serious conversation. That’s the high road vs. low gambit: always a crap shoot as to which tactic will win public approval. Both parties downplayed their candidates’ debating skills, limiting expectations, but despite Romney’s foot-in-mouth disease, he had an edge with eight continuous years of practice selling his brand of Kool Aid. It was also evident to all of us that his campaign was face down on the mat and the ref was counting. For Romney these debates represent his last hurrah, now or never.